The Battle Ringing in the Background of His Mind
by abba2zabba15
Summary: Harry/Ginny with slight Ron/Hermione references. Harry wakes up in the Hospital Wing after the final battle and defeating Voldemort, with a huge bruise over his heart and missing Ginny. Their reconciliation. Post DH


"Ginny!" Harry yelled as he opened his eyes in a strange (but extremely comfortable) white bed. He relaxed when he saw that he was in the hospital wing. It was the day after the final battle and Voldemort's defeat.

Harry could still hear the battle ringing in the background of his mind, as a constant reminder and ghost of the things that he had caused, the things that were his fault.

_I thought I went to sleep in my dorm_. Harry thought to himself, but shrugged it off. This was Hogwarts, anything can happen here. Madame Pomfrey probably moved him last night to check on his injuries.

Harry tried to sit up, but was hit with a wall of pain. He groaned and reached up and tenderly poked the place right above his heart, where the killing curse had hit him in the Forbidden Forest. _That's going to bruise_. Harry said inside his head. He gingerly put his head back on the pillow, and tried to look down at his chest to see where he was hit. Finding this impossible, he instead turned his head to the right and saw a blurry figure with fiery red hair in the chair next to his bed. He squinted at the person, and realized he didn't have on his glasses.

"Ginny?" he repeated, this time as a question.

"No dear, not Ginny. Not yet." Mrs. Weasley answered him kindly. She picked his glasses off of the bedside table and slipped them on to his face. The world came into sharp focus. The curtains around his bed were drawn shut, but Arthur Weasley pulled them open as he came to join his wife by Harry's bed.

Harry looked to the bed next to him and saw Ron and Hermione, sleeping in each other's arms on the same tiny hospital bed. Harry smiled at them, even though they weren't awake. Why Mrs. Weasley was letting them sleep together (they were unmarried, after all) was beyond him. But he guessed that because of the current circumstances, and desperate times, Mrs. Weasley would allow certain changes. Love could still exist after all.

"Where is he?" Harry heard a frantic voice by the door, and he shot up in his bed, all pain forgotten. He craned his neck to see a young woman with Weasley-orange hair whipping her head back and forth, searching.

"Ginny!" Harry called, as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley backed slowly from his bed. The only thing he'd said since he'd woken up was their daughter's name. Clearly they were about to go through something private, and the Weasley's, being the kind people they were, didn't want to intrude.

All of a sudden a blur tore through the isles, and knocked Harry back onto his bed as Ginny Weasley leapt on him.

"Ooff!" All the breath left Harry's body as the girl landed on his chest, but he couldn't have cared less. He was slightly aware of the flare of pain that blossomed from his chest as soon as the girl hit him, but Harry took no notice.

Ginny lay sprawled on top of his body, hands dragged through his dark hair, sobbing her eyes out into his neck.

"You git!" she cried against him. "Don't you ever leave me again! I thought you were dead!"

Harry half laughed, half sobbed against her, so his words came out as a strangled cry, "Never again, Gin. I'm so sorry."

She stopped crying and looked at him, brown eyes into green. "What are you apologizing for?"

"For leaving, for Fred, for not being able to…" but Ginny stopped him.

"Don't you dare. It's not your fault. It never was! And you're here with me now, so none of the other stuff matters."

But he could see tears well in her eyes at the memory of her brother, who lay dead in the Great Hall. Harry gave a sad little smile, and said, "I'm here forever, Ginny. That's a promise."

"You better be telling the truth, because I swear Potter, I will hex you if you're planning on going anywhere within the next 50 years."

"It's the truth. I'm in love with you, Ginny. And I'm not going anywhere. That is, as long as you're not." And for the first time in what might have been days, Harry Potter looked scared.

Ginny didn't answer, she just kissed him, and everything they both could and couldn't say was put into that kiss. They kissed for seconds, minutes, hours, years, Harry couldn't have said. He lost himself in her, not for the first time, and definitely not for the last. As they pulled away, Harry pulled Ginny closer, and closed his eyes. He breathed in the smell of her hair and just the smell of her in general, and sighed.

Oh yeah, everything was going to be just fine.


End file.
